Associate Editor
Dr. Mrutyunjay Mohapatra,
https://mausam.imd.gov.in/imd_latest/contents/dgm/DGM.pdf
Institutional email ID: m.mohapatra@imd.gov.in
Director General of Meteorology, India Meteorological Department (IMD)
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Dr. Mrutyunjay Mohapatra serves as the Director General of Meteorology at the India Meteorological Department (IMD). He is the Permanent Representative of India to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and was elected Third Vice-President of WMO at the nineteenth World Meteorological Congress in 2023 for a four-year term.
From a village in Odisha to global prominence, Dr. Mohapatra’s journey is a testament to the transformative power of science and determination. He is credited with spearheading the shift from analogue forecasting to digital systems, integrating automated data collection, satellite-based monitoring, and high-tech communication systems. He is the key person behind significant improvement in forecast accuracy with respect to severe weather events including tropical cyclones, heavy rainfall, fog, heat wave, cold wave, thunderstorm. Overall, there has been an improvement of 30-40% in forecast accuracy of various severe weather events during last 10 years.
With distinguished expertise in weather forecasting, cyclone warning services, and disaster risk reduction, he is widely recognized as the "Cyclone Man of India." This title was earned for accurate forecasting of Cyclone Phailin in 2013, which surpassed international agencies and prevented thousands of fatalities, thereby earning him national and international recognition. As Head of RSMC, New Delhi, he conceived and implemented the Severe Weather Forecasting Programme (SWFP) for South Asia, providing services to nine countries. He also served as an expert on the NDMA Guidelines for cyclone, thunderstorm, and heatwave management; devised the Regional Sub-Project Implementation Plan; contributed to hazard-proneness mapping for the National Cyclone Risk Mitigation Project; and organized training workshops on severe weather forecasting. His continued efforts ensured zero deaths during the 2023 cyclone Biparjoy and lowered cyclone-related fatalities to double digits since 2010.
In addition, Dr. Mohapatra has headed the Regional Specialised Meteorological Centre-Tropical Cyclones (RSMC) since 2008 and led the Numerical Weather Prediction Division (2015-16 & 2018 onwards). As Project Director for the modernization of cyclone warning systems since 2007, he has overseen key initiatives and continues to guide national projects such as ACROSS (2019-24) and Mission Mausam (2024-26). He has successfully led the upgradation of early warning services for severe weather, impact-based forecasts (IBF), and risk-based warnings (RBW), ensuring holistic addressal of (i) policy, (ii) planning, (iii) vision, (iv) strategy, (v) observations, (vi) monitoring, (vii) analysis, (viii) modelling, (ix) forecasting, (x) early warning generation, (xi) dissemination, (xii) capacity building, (xiii) confidence building, and (xiv) outreach.
As Chairman of key WMO bodies, he headed the WMO/ESCAP Panel on Tropical Cyclones from 2017 to 2018; chaired the Regional Sub-Project Management Team for SWFP-South Asia; led the Executive Council of the South Asia Hydromet Forum; and steered the WMO RA II Task Team for regional partnership review (TT-RP). His seminal contributions to the Tropical Cyclone Programme (TCP) include enhancing cyclone warning services across thirteen WMO/ESCAP Panel member countries. Moreover, Dr. Mohapatra has served as an Expert Member on numerous WMO committees, such as the International Organising Committees for the 8th and 9th International Workshops on Tropical Cyclones (IWTC), Working groups for IWTC-8 on various aspects of Tropical Cyclone and Evaluation Committee, Working groups for the 3rd & 4th International Workshop on Tropical Cyclone Landfall Processes (IWTCLP), Team on Climate Impact on Tropical Cyclones, and the Executive Council of the Panel of Experts on Polar and High Mountain Observations. His role extended to bilateral and multilateral network programmes conducted with NOAA, USA, for the adaptation of the HWRF model at IMD; JMA for the Ensemble Prediction System; WMO for the Severe Weather Forecast Programme (SWFP) - Southeast Asia; the Ministry of Urban Affairs for the preparation of the Vulnerability Atlas; and many more.
Dr. Mohapatra’s journey to the top of the meteorological world encompasses several milestones in innovation and scientific advancement. These include: (i) developing standardized operating procedures (SOPs) for coastal hazard management and synergising them with the Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services, (ii) designing an indigenous Decision Support System on GIS platform, (iii) deploying the Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) for warning dissemination, (iv) implementing the Web-based Dynamic Composite Risk Atlas in 2020, (v) customising forecasts for offshore Oil & Exploration Operators from 2022, and (vi) providing observational and forecast services for the Golden Quadrilateral.
His extensive research output includes more than 250 publications in National and International journals, proceedings and book chapters garnering an H-Index of 34, I10 index of 98 and over 5500 citations. He has edited 20 books (including the Annual Cyclone Reviews for the WMOESCAP Panel), served as Editor of Mausam since 2019, and served as a rapporteur for annual updates to the Tropical Cyclone Operational Plan (TCP-21) since 2014. He has guided and examined several Ph.D. dissertations at prestigious institutions like IIT Delhi and BHU, and initiated lab-to-lab network programmes with NCMRWF, NIOT, ISRO, and IAF. Among his numerous accolades, he received the Scientific and Technological Activities Commission Outstanding Service Award from the American Meteorological Society (2025), the United Nations Sasakawa Award for Disaster Risk Reduction (2025), the Environmental Excellence Award from the Environment & Societal Development Association (2022), the World Congress of Disaster Management (WCDM) Disaster Risk Reduction Award (2022), the Dr. Sabuj Sahoo Memorial Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society for Agricultural Research and Management (2022), and the ICHL Award for Excellence in Humanitarian Action (2013). He received a PhD in Physics from Utkal University and Honorary D.Sc. degrees from FM University and Kalinga Institute of Technology. He also earned the Fellowship of the Indian Meteorological Society and the Certificate of Merit for Young Scientist from the Ministry of Earth Sciences.
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